See Trayvon Martin's Parents Get Real on Resilience

Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin survived the 2012 killing of their teenage son, Trayvon Martin, by George Zimmerman—only to see their child’s name dragged through the press and the trial that exonerated his the killer. His death and the legal aftermath pushed the pair into the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement. Speaking at actions around the country allowed them to build solidarity with other parents of Black children slain by police or vigilantes, as well as with the thousands of demonstrators demanding accountability for such violence. As Fulton told the hosts of “Ebro in the Morning” radio show yesterday (July 31), their activism remains inextricably tied to their grief and healing.

“We would go to different cities and speak to the families of [Black children killed by vigilantes or police],” Fulton explained as Martin nodded. “That took away from the hardcore grieving that we were doing. I’m going to grieve the rest of my life, it’s like a valuable piece of me is missing and I have to live without that.”

“I absolutely still have good days and bad days,” she added later. “But, I think, for the most part, this is not something that people should look at and say, ‘Well that happened to this family over here.’ They should look at this family and say, ‘Well this happened to them, I don’t want this to happen to me. Let me do something now so that I can try to prevent this from happening to other families.”

Fulton and Martin appeared on the radio show to discuss “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story,” the new Paramount Network docuseries examining their son’s life and death. Watch the full interview, in which Fulton and Martin discuss why they worked with fellow executive producer Jay-Z, their local advocacy against Florida’s stand-your-ground laws and developing the docuseries.